yoga

All human beings experience restriction, physical, emotional or otherwise. We are constantly confronted by them, the circumstances, people and events that we think prevent us from being truly realized, content and at peace.

Yoga can help us identify those restrictions without judgment; it offers us tools to transform and remove unnecessary ones and to live peacefully with the restrictions that cannot be changed. Life then becomes a lot more enjoyable and a lot less frustrating.

Different yoga styles will offer us different approaches and emphasis. I teach all classes according to the Taoistic principles of Yin and Yang, the two fundamental and complementary forces in the Universe. Yang is characterized by strength, rhythm, repetition and will power; most of what we know in yoga and exercise – as well as many of our daily life values – are yang by nature. Yin is manifested in softness, stillness, slowness and kindness. In our modern lives we tend to overlook and dismiss these qualities, leading to great suffering for ourselves and others. In order to cultivate a healthy and fulfilling life we need to keep both aspects in balance: too much yang may develop in rigidity and aggression; too much yin in weakness and depression. It is part of our yoga practice to develop the intuition and the wisdom to know what we need and when. Some people may need more yin, some more yang, but we all need them both. Eventually we come to realize that the practice of postures is just the beginning: as the mind calms down and the body opens up we find a well of vibrant energy, which we then can use to explore our full potential as human beings.

After 21 years of teaching many weekly yoga classes, I am focusing this year on international courses and teacher trainings. All classes are still available by colleagues and students trained by me, at the YogaGarden, the studio I co-founded with Marcel van de Vis Heil (who you can also find there by the way). YogaGarden is the only studio we know of to offer functional yoga, a practice that respects the uniqueness of every human being.